Dog walker films winds lifting forest floor during Storm Babet in Scotland

[mopinko]

5. dude, get that puppy out of there. &conifers be like that.

sorry, i was so worried for that pup.

we had a freak storm here about 20 yrs ago. it was march, iirc, and had been rainy, but since the ground was still frozen the water just sat. then we had a rly wet snow, a windy storm, and the spruces around here fell like dominoes. they were very common foundation trees around here, so many of them had a sheltered side, like 1 i had in front of my house. the lopsided weight and the squishy ground, and boom.
even free standing 1s went tho, cuz the wind was so strong, it rly drove the snow into 1 side of everything.

and yeah, they all pulled up a big mat of earth. out to their driplines, usually. all trees do when they get blown down, something i’ve sadly had a lot of experience in my supposedly ’climate safe’ city. but proportionately, conifers have broader but shallower root systems.
oaks and maples pull up about twice their trunk circumferences.